1963...

[pturo]

1963 Popular Washers

In Syracuse, I lived in a suburb that was "new" early 60's ranches and colonials. While the builder chose overwhelmingly GE appliances in the kitchen, the laundry room was up to the owner. A preponderace of Whilpool washers, then next Kenmore were in my friends homes growing up. Of course Easy Washer was headquarted here, so some people had older Easy's. We were the oddity, we had a Maytag, they were as rare as a Mercedes in our development, I felt like a communist.

 

[toggleswitch]

Said: I am puzzled as to why Westinghouse built top-loaders if the front-loaders were better.

Larger (perceived) capacity
Speed (cycle times)
Ease-of-use / loading & unloading, no beniding
Psychological benefit of plenty of water.

and the number one reason IMHO....
because the majority of machines were T/L at that time.

 

[chaskelljr2]

"Brandonkoons":

1963???? WOW!!!!!! What a GREAT year...... That was the year I was born.

But, formalities aside..... what automatic washer was common in my area (which is Washington, D. C.) in the 1960's was Maytag, RCA-Whirlpool and Kenmore (in THAT order for the top three), and then there were the occasional GE, Hotpoint or Philco. I didn't see a whole lot of Frigidaires in my area during that time. When I moved to Columbia, South Carolina in the mid 1970's, then I saw quite a few Frigidaires, but even then, what I still saw mostly were Maytags, Whirlpools and Kenmores (once again). We didn't get our first washer until 1967, and our first washer was a Kenmore. I had aunts on both sides of the family that had bought Kenmores before we had bought ours a few years later. We started out with a BOL Kenmore in 1967, but the years before, both aunts had Lady Kenmores. My mother's sister had a Model 800 (1963) and my father's aunt had a Keyboard model (1966-67).

But once again, if I had to say what the average home in Washington, D. C. had as a clothes washer back in 1963, then I had to say:

(01). Maytag
(02). RCA-Whirlpool
(03). Sears Kenmore

In that EXACT order.

--Charles--

 

[rchris]

Here in Birmingham, Kenmore, Whirlpool, and GE were big in the early 60s. In the late 60s, early 70s, it was Maytag, GE, and Whirlpool.

 

[whirlcool]

In the Chicago suburbs where I grew up in 1963 there were Frigidaires, GE Filter Flos, lots of Norge and Hotpoints. Hotpoint had a big factory in Chicago, if I remember correctly. When I was a kid we got to go to a Hotpoint company picnic cause one of my uncles worked for Hotpoint.

 

[rchris]

Hard to believe, whirlcool, that there wouldnt be a lot of Kenmores, since Chicago is the home of Sears Roebuck.

Seems that Norge had some kind of headquarters in Chitown, too, so I can see lots of Norge owners.

 

[abcomatic]

1963 washers in Pontiac, Il I was 14 then

My mother bought our first automatic washer and matching dryer. She looked all over town at the following: Speed Queen, Hamilton, Maytag, GE, Dexter, Kelvinator, Philco, Easy, Kenmore, Norge,Westinghouse, Ward's Signature and Blackstone. That is when the stores (not Sears or Wards) would bring the machines out to the house, hook them all up and let you use them for a month FREE, of all things. If you didn't want them, back they went.
We went to Gambles and she bought the dreaded CORANADO. The fanciest thing that they offered;16 cycles,lights all over the place, over-flow rinse, automatic bleach dispenser.
The only reason why she bought the pair was that she got FREE canned food. I hate cannned peas, carrots and corn to this very day! lol
The washer was awful! It vibrated so much that my father had to replace the floor about 5 years later. You have never heard so much swearing in your life! lol The agitator self-destructed and had to be replaced 3 times. Finally, the washer killed itself in 1971 with a tub full of soapy water. The tub broke lose and just laid over and died.
Water flooded the kitchen and even went into the living room! My father was ecstatic and my mother swore a blue streak a mile long! (My brother and I went into hiding). The gas dryer on the other hand with only one repair lasted until 1995!
IF anyone knows - Who made washers and dryers for Gambles in 1963? I would love to know and so would my mom who is now 83. (She wants her money back) lol
I have lots more stories about washers and wash day. Thanks for listening. ABComatic

 

[frigilux]

In lieu of the resident experts, I'll try to answer (without being a smartass, since I'm still fighting the stomach flu and not up to being clever):

I believe Coronado's were made by Beam, who also made the Wizard washers. If you find the video of Robert's '66 Wizard, you'll probably recognize the snorting noises, the tub ring, the agitator and the indexing tub.

 

[spinout]

In southern CA, Kenmore seemed to outnumber everything else

About 10 years ago I spent a few evenings at the UCSD library pulling all of the 1960's issues of Consumers Reports having anything to do with washers & dryers. In one issue dating to the early or mid sixties, I don't remember exactly, they did a breakout of sales by manufacturer. What I do remember is that Whirlpool + Kenmore had at least 50% of the (domestic) market. The other 50% was pretty much divided up among the balance of manufacturers. It was different than what my impressions might have suggested. Unfortunately, I don't remember any other numbers except that I expected GE to have a greater share than they did. They actually published production figures for each manufacture that year. I also remember seeing an issue where they had an agitator shoot-out. The spirals and ramps vs. the venerable straight vane. Anyway, I thought that there was a lot of interesting info presented during that period. And I even recall that CU once awarded the top spot to a Filter-Flo.

Pehaps, someday, those reviews will too, grace this site as I think they are quite worthwhile. If someone has access to these issues, and is willing to scan them in, it would be informative and interesting to see those articles here.

 

[maytagbear]

In '63, I was 3-

and Ma was using a square tub Maytag wringer, and a Maytag gas dryer.

She went back to teaching the next year, and we got our first automatic, a Whirlpool Imperial (shown once in a while as the POD- the mother with the soiled twin boys). Suds saver, too. She used that feature a year or so, but soon lost interest in it. Our housekeeper would use the suds saver to wash sheets.

(After Dad died, Ma hired a lovely older neighbor woman to get my sister and me off to school, straighten the house, do some laundry, and some cooking, as well as sitting for my sister and me once in a while. She ran her own house, a rooming house for college students, and she did lots of sheets. She always used the suds saver on her Kenmore!)

In the neighbourhood, we had a wide range from Maytag automatics, to two Easy twin-tubs, to the most interesting one, a Frigidaire.

Most of my friends now have either Maytag or Whirlpool.

Lawrence/Maytagbear